Top ten things you need to know about Android 'L'

Android's biggest update yet is brimming with exciting new stuff

Phew. Today's been a huge day for Android news, with the Google I/O keynote presentation and the assortment of announcements that followed. For Android followers, the biggest news of the day was the announcement of a next version of Android after KitKat, named simply "Android L." We don't know what the "L" stands for just yet, but we do know that Android L will bring sweeping changes to Android's UI, important performance and security enhancements and a boatload of new user-facing features.

Read on to learn more about the top ten features coming in the next version of Android.

1. Material Design — Android's new design philosophy

Android is getting its biggest facelift since 2011's Ice Cream Sandwich release. The new Android is flatter, more colorful and multi-layered, with new visual flourishes to respond to your touch. Android design boss Matias Duarte says Google took inspiration from paper and ink in its new design language.

Through this new approach, Android takes Kit Kat's streamlined UI to the next level, with seamless transition animations between apps, and an elevation property for every surface on your screen. That means everyday UI elements take on a three-dimensional quality, being rendered in the correct order with realtime shadows.

Material design is also concent-centric, with UI elements able to absorb color from artwork and photos to add visual flair. And the new geometric focus has also reduced the back, home and recents software keys to simply a triangle, a circle and a square.

But Material Design isn't just for Android. The new look software will be seen across Chrome OS and the Google's web properties.

2. It's not just for your phone

Speaking of which, Android's L release will bring the OS to cars through Android Auto, smartwatches through Android Wear and your television through — you guessed it — Android TV. Just as the new design language will pervade all of Google's properties, the new Android aims to infiltrate more areas of your digital life.

3. Project Volta helps you conserve battery power

Google's got some new tricks up its sleeve to help you get the most out of your phone's battery in Android L, under the banner of "Project Volta." The new battery historian feature allows developers to measure the impact of specific activities on a device's battery life. The new job scheduler feature allows devs to optimize power consumption in apps — for example, by queueing "non-urgent" network activity so as to wake the device less often. It can also be used to schedule battery-intensive tasks like downloading updates for when a phone is on its charger.

On top of that, Android L adds a new battery saver mode which can be used to clock down the CPU, limit the screen refresh rate and cut down background data. These are features many OEMs have built atop Android in the past, but they've long been missing from the stock OS.

4. Simpler lock security and the all-important kill switch

In Android L, Google debuts a new feature called Personal Unlocking that aims to help users keep their phones secure, but without overwhelming them with passcodes and other options. Personal Unlocking allows you to set a specific location in which the phone knows it's safe to unlock without a PIN or other lock screen security. And like Motorola's Trusted Bluetooth feature, you can also set your device up to unlock automatically when connected to a certain Bluetooth accessory.

5. Notifications everywhere!

In Android L, notifications have escaped the notification pulldown and have infiltrated other areas of the UI. Notifications can now be displayed on the lock screen, and a new type of notification, dubbed heads-up notifications, can be displayed over the top of your apps. After swiping down to reveal the full list of notifications, you can double-tap on one to launch the related app, or wipe away to dismiss.

Heads-up notifications can pop over a portion of the screen to let you know what's going on without interrupting the app you're currently using. We've seen similar stuff from LG's most recent UI on the G3, for calls and text messages, but Android L looks to expand upon this.

6. Android L is your Chromebook's best friend

Android L sees Google bringing much tighter integration between Android and the Chrome OS found on its Chromebook laptops.

Similar to the new Android's Personal Unlock feature, your Chromebook will be able to tell if your phone is nearby and automatically log you in. Notifications from Android can be mirrored to your Chromebook, and calls, battery state and text messages can be communicated to the laptop too.

Oh, and if that wasn't enough, Google is introducing the ability to run Android apps into Chrome OS, with apps including Evernote, Flipboard and Vine demonstrated at the 2014 Google I/O keynote.

7. It'll run exclusively on the new, faster ART runtime

This one's been coming for a while, but the experimental ART (Android runtime) software included in Android 4.4 KitKat as a developer preview is taking over full-time in Android L. ART is faster than the old Dalvik compiler thanks to its use of ahead-of-time compilation, but the fact that ART compiles Android apps into native code means it helps Android run across many different platforms, from ARM to Intel's x86. (We should note ART still supports just-in-time (JIT) compiling as well, expanding its compatibility with other apps.)

What's more, ART is fully 64-bit compatible, meaning it'll be able to take full advantage of 64-bit processors emerging later this year and in early 2015.

8. An all-new Chrome experience with easier tab switching

The Android version of Google's Chrome browser has been given the Material Design treatment. Google search results with cards for Knowledge Graph results seamlessly fill the screen and animate just like any area of the system UI.

Chrome also integrates with the recent apps switcher in Android L, allowing you to easily see all your tabs by pressing the recent apps software key. But Chrome isn't the only app that'll be able to link into the "recents" menu in this way — Android L will include a new API to allow third-party apps to use this functionality.

9. It's the best Android version yet for enterprise

In a surprise announcement at the Google I/O keynote, Google revealed that Samsung had contributed its Knox software back to the Android code base, and that it'd be making its debut in Android L's "Android at Work" feature. Android at work lets enterprise users keep corporate apps siloed away from personal stuff on their devices — an extra layer of security for work stuff, and extra privacy for personal content.

Besides Samsung, manufacturers like HTC, Sony, LG, and Motorola are confirmed to be onboard with Android for Work. And in other business-related developments, Google also revealed that it's bringing native Office file editing to its Google Docs suite of apps.

10. It's coming later this year, but you can try it now!

Android L is a work-in-progress preview at present, and we're not expecting it to start hitting devices as a finalized update until later in the year. However Google released preview system images for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 on June 26th, so developers and Android enthusiasts can give it a try. We'd caution against immediately flashing your Nexus with the L preview build, though, as it may break some apps.

Google's Chet Haase describes L as "a preview release where things work pretty well, but it's not done yet." So unless you're a developer, or want to volunteer as Google's guinea pig, you may want to wait for a more stable release.

Bonus round — What we don't know about Android L

Google typically names its Android releases after "sweet treats" — the most recent being Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0), Jelly Bean (4.1-4.3) and thanks to a Nestle tie-in, KitKat in Android 4.4. After I, J and K comes L, but Google's not revealing what it stands for just yet. The company also isn't saying whether the new version will be Android 4.5 or 5.0, though we have to imagine L — described as the biggest Android update yet — will warrant more than a mere point version bump.

We should learn more about Android L, and what the L actually stands for, when it launches later this year. In the meantime, hit the comments and let us know which Android L feature you're looking forward to the most!

Ugh I agree...hate the colors but love the design & animations! Lests hope Xposed starts working with ART and we can remedy this ourselves. Lol
Sent via my rooted Note3 running X-Note international with SnapKat kernel ( with no options anywhere to enable ART! :'(

Sounds like what iOS users said about iOS 7. Don´t worry you guys will get used to it. As an iPhone user, I actually like this new Android, it looks modern, similar to the trend but distinct enough, with that expected Android flare. For depth perception iOS uses translucency and Android uses shadows. Both apparently inspired from Windows Phone but with their own take on it. I also appreciate that there is more uniformity among Google products. This is a good step, and be patient, when you guys have this new OS, I am sure your tunes will change.

That's good to hear. I actually like the Windows Phone interface. The main reason I went back to Android was because I simply ran into to many time when an app wasn't available but I'd totally be fine with an OS that took some elements from WP.

Not me. I can't seem to find anything to complain about. Material Design is the best looking experience of any mobile OS to date IMO. The color, the animations all really appeal to me. Better security. The next step towards ART. Better battery life. And all around integration of Android in more things in my life.
ಠ益ಠ

As an Android fanboy, I actually really like Apple's flat design. It's much more intuitive than Android's been in the past. But, with Material Design I think that a key demographic will be attracted to Android that was missing before (namely those who have a harder time understanding "technology")

As a Note 3 user (formerly a Note 2 user) I can tell you that all of Samsung's features work just fine with a 3rd party launcher. I've used Nova launcher in the past, and currently use Action Launcher.

Same here. Everything looks so slick and fresh. They have done their homework concerning the past iterations. After Ice Cream Sandwich the design just got more and more appealing. It's one of the main reasons I like to flash a vanilla rom every so often, I cannot wait for material and see how it acts in real time.

It's not terribly different. Regardless, you should bear in mind that this will be a developer preview, as such it's not guaranteed to work well so if you were thinking of flashing this on your daily driver just to dive into some "L" goodness, you might want to hold off.

With all respect, having spent years on XDA seeing this same thing play out time and again, some of the questions you're asking lead me to think that you'd probably end up getting it installed after a hiccup or two, but you might not be ready for the potential problems the system will undoubtedly have.

They're not ready to release for at the very least a few more months which could mean there are some significant bugs/security holes/app compatibility issues that need to be addressed. I'd say only people with a spare phone or the time and willingness on their hands to deal with small headaches here and there should flash it.

Im planning on installing it on my nexus 7 2013. I'm simply curious as to how the fast boot install works. I will wait a few days to maybe a couple a weeks depending on how others say it is on my device. Trust me, I'm not about to dive into some 'L' goodness just to have my tablet fucked.

The difference is just in the commands you use and where you use them. For fastboot you have to be in the fastboot menu and adb works from within the phone. Gotta make sure USB debugging is turned on in developer options as well before trying all this. But the difference really comes down to commands starting with fastboot instead of adb and making sure you're in the fastboot menu.

I'm confident there are many more details that separate fastboot from adb, but for simplicity, it's pretty much how I outlined it.

I did post a link to an Android Central article about flashing factory images up above here. I'm not sure of their guidelines for posting external links, so if you copy paste this next thing into google and follow the XDA link, it'll get you some pretty in-depth directions as well.

Jheez thanks for the link but that is long and confusing and I think their will be an easier to flash "L". Considering my boot loader is unlocked and I can use NRT to unroot, flashing the image in fastboot should be relatively easy. To be totally honest, I prefer using toolkits because I don't trust myself with putting in commands and downloading and extracting .zips.

When you unlock your bootloader, the system images they will post will do the rest. The unlocking process will wipe your phone if you haven't done it already though judging by the changes, I don't think anyone should attempt to try to keep their data when they upgrade until it has been proven out.

By the time "L" gets released, the N4 will have passed it's two year support life. That's not to say that they CAN'T or WON'T release "L" for the 2012 N7 or the N4, but it's unlikely looking at device support from a purely historical viewpoint. That said, I'm confident that should Google not update the older devices due to the two year support cycle that XDA will come through in usual style.

Leaks of android L had the nexus 4 resolution. Two years is up in November. Nexus 7 2013 is sporting the same chip more or less and it's getting L. Safe to say that l will be nexus 4's last
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The other thing to remember is...they sold a megaton of Nexus 4 phones. Android is always criticised for not getting enough phones in circulation over to the latest OS version. So I doubt that Google would be dumb enough to ignore possibly 40%+ of their easily updatable (as in Nexus/Play) hardware group.

Android has become too complex for XDA. ROM developers are having enough trouble modifying the latest version of Android for devices that shipped with it. Running unsupported versions of Android is unstable and buggy. I tried AOSP based ROMs for a Galaxy S4. NOPE. Too unstable. For instance it constantly loses bluetooth pairings. Went back to a de-crapified touchwiz based ROM. Back in January I tried some AOSP on my Note 2. Not good. Battery issues, camera issues, general stability issues. It ran like a champ for a year on CleanROM which is another decrapified TouchWiz ROM.

I think I'm done running custom ROMs like that. The only stable custom ROMs are ones based on the same version that the device supports.

I think they will. Most nexus devices get two letter upgrades to the os. The nexus one started with eclair, and got froyo and gingerbread. The nexus s got ice cream sandwich and jelly bean. The galaxy nexus is the only exception, but it got all three versions of jelly bean.

I think they're not releasing the developer preview to the nexus 4 is because they are just sticking to the most recent nexus phone and tablet for developers to use. Google might release it for the nexus 4 later.

Exactly. They are just releasing the preview for their most recent phone and tablet reference devices.
I would bet my life that the N4 gets the "L" update. It may be it's last...but it will get this update.
Don't forget, the Nexus 4 (officially) supports ART, while the Nexus 7 (2012) does not. If anything, I'd say that the original Nexus 7 will almost definitely not see this update.

Just because Apple is hyped doesn't mean that what they do is the best design possible (usually I think the opposite and never buy Apple products). IPhone users tap a rounded square for home and several other random functions from double-presses and long-presses etc. Google have made the recents button a square and home a circle. No consistency at all even with that unintuitive Apple meaning.

It also makes sense for random shapes on game controllers where buttons have different functions in different games, but in this case the function is fixed and it is simply is just stupidly unintuitive, and completely out of line with icons in the rest if the OS. Home should look like home, and now is also too similar to the "all apps" circle. This is just form over function and needless change in the wrong direction just for the sake of it. It's the type of thing that makes my blood boil!

Dude, people can press the buttons once and figure out what they do. Every platform requires users to learn *something* new.
No OS is 100% intuitive from the second you pick it up. We all have to learn the patterns they put in front of us; learn the menus we're supposed to follow--or whatever it is. If it's fairly intuitive, most users will only need to learn it once.

Functionality of the buttons isn't fixed AT ALL.
The triangle back button can rotate into being a downward pointing arrow to indicate that you can hide the keyboard.
The home button can be double tapped or dragged up for search (or whatever your preference of launcher allows).
Additional function keys can appear or disappear to suit the current use-case and app context.

But I find it HILARIOUS that you get so upset at change. It reminds me of my friend who was a special-ed teacher. She'd often mention how she had to be VERY CAREFUL not to introduce unnecessary changes into her student's daily routines, otherwise they'd totally break down and often end up shitting themselves or biting/pulling hair.
Your quickness to get a sandy vagina at the prospect of any slight learning curve actually says A LOT about you. (Hopefully you have a spare pair of pants for yourself, or buy in bulk, because life is FULL of times requiring you to learn and adapt to changes that you don't get to control.. ;-p )

Agree with you bro! It looks like unfinished design to me...not to mention it starts to feel a little bit "Playstation-ish"...I would stick to the current symbols, love them.
Another option could be eliminate the soft buttons and use native app buttons, like in iOS, where you can navigate from the app itself.

The current buttons reek of the Honeycomb era though. They need to be replaced with something.
They'll get a lot of these little details sorted out by the fall. I doubt the final release will look exactly the same by the time it comes out.

Old "recents" was stacked squares.... now it's a single square. How is that suddenly not intuitive?
IT's a square to represent a concept of recent applications (a concept that only exists in computing, and not the real world, so there's no such thing as "intuitive" for a manufactured concept).
And since Android launchers rarely (if EVER) show recent apps stacked, it makes sense not to design function icons after functionality of one specific launcher.

Simplified arrow (triangle) to the left to indicate back (instead of an arrow that needlessly loops right then left). How is that NOT simplified?

Home. You want a house? What percentage of people call HOUSES homes, let alone have houses with angled roofs at the front? The vast majority of people world-wide, now-a-days live in shared living structures such as apartment complexes. A minority have roof structures like the old "home" button...

So generalizing a SUBJECTIVE non-computing concept such as "home" into a general shape makes MUCH more sense than expecting everyone to learn "arbitrary shape of someone else's house means "home"(screen) function.

You know, you may be right...about all of that. Android "L" could potentially be the best move.
Although, the folks in Mountain View are pretty creative when they set their minds on something. They could pull something amazing out out of their a***s. Lol

That doesn't make much sense. Much of this is when it performs the compilation. I don't know why any hardware world make that impossible. It's more likely that they don't update n7 2012 and therefore no ART.

THe system partition need to significantly increase in size. To do that, you would have to wipe the device. I am guess that is one of the reasons why. Another could be the lack of a Snapdragon chip, but I am rejecting that one....

Unfortunately, yes. I would say that the Nexus 7 2012 will almost certainly not be updated. I picked up one the week they first came out. I have always had a fondness for it, but Google did not future-proof that tablet very well. It was their first Nexus tablet, so they didn't know what it would be like at this point. It has so many weird idiosyncrasies that I've never seen on a Nexus device before. Between the Tegra hardware, slow flash memory and poor touchscreen, it's just not the most pleasant experience anymore. It was definitely awesome when it came out though. I suspect that Google didn't drop support sooner because of how many people owned one, and how it would effect the percentages of people using the most current version of Android.

Damn that's a sexy phone lol. Have to admit now I'm interested in a smart watch. Android car...wow. Yes, I can do it now but takes all that moto did +10
So much for bare bones is stock...as we liked but this looks great
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Yeah, as cool as the widgets were, I think ultimately this makes more sense (specially for the masses of people who never even knew lock screen widgets existed). It seems they're charging lock screen behavior to be more iOS/Sense like tho, no? In that it'll now be there even when there's no security...

Right now if you have a pattern lock on a timer but it hasn't kicked in you simply get no lock screen, unlike Sense which always has the ring fist regardless of security.

The stock lock screen has actually followed Sense's lock screen progress over the years... The shortcuts, the ring in Honeycomb, the notifications now (very reminiscent of the way Sense presents calendar, call, text, and email notifications), the music controls, etc.

The power saver feature and the location based security seem interesting. I hope that they let you pick more than one location to disable the lock code. For me I'd rather not use a code when I am at home or work (work is pretty secure). Right now I just don't use any security so this feature if implemented right would help me.

Yeah, I noticed that nobody else was picking up that the Knox base code was put into Android. However, I don't think it matters anymore, people found how to get around Knox for Samsung devices, I'm sure it'll be easy to get around when it's built in the base code.

I know ART uses more storage space. I am currently switching over to ART just to show how it will not be a storage issue for everyone. I had 12.92 usable GBs of space, 8.41 free on Dalvik (and I don't have an SD card slot on my phone either). On ART it is 7.64 free. ART didn't even use up an entire GB of space. AS long as someone isn't pushing the limit on storage space they should be fine.

Alas, I am swtiching back to Dalvik because of app incompatibilities. That is what concerns me more than anything else about the permanent switch to ART. I know most don't have any problems on ART, but some do, so how long are app devs going to take to fix their apps to properly work with ART? Plus, xposed doesn't work on ART, which really is nice to have if you have a rooted nexus or GPE device, that way you don't have to go down the custom ROM route to get some features that are found in cyanogenmod, for example.

Anyone who got an 8GB phone should know they are going to be screwed from the get go.

I'm not entirely sold on L yet. It seems to me as if they are implementing features that custom ROMs have, but not doing as good of a job on it (heads up is similar to PA's hover, and the lock screen notifications seen like a less minimalistic version of Carbon's). Also, the colors and animations are to childish for my taste.

Go to your My Files app > Internal Storage > Android > Data, now look for what app you want to back up the data for (i.e. com.fingersoft.hillclimb.....), then copy and paste to microSD or upload to cloud.

What do you think Cyanogen will do? I just got my OnePlus One invite and I have 72 hours to make a decision about if I'm going to buy it. I'm worried my Nexus 5 will get "L" and I'll be waiting through buggy releases on Cyanogen for months.

Is someone at Google a *Tron* fan..?
Google in the car..the phone..the watch..the T.V...
I love Google.. I really do.. but, I don't want to crawl inside it and see it 24/7.
I know there are those of you that do.. but I'm not one of them. Just give me a phone and a tablet and I'm good.

I'm not sure. I've read that the permanent switch to ART would require more room on the system partition, and so I don't think they can do that.
Thru may just have users flash it.
Also, were still uncertain as if the os update cycle on the tablets will be longer than the phone life cycle. People usually keep their tablets longer than their phones in my experience, so hopefully Google keeps updating the nexus 7 as long as it can be updated.

Stock android keeps getting better and better. Nexus or silver all the way! Switched from the gs3 to the nexus 4 over a year ago and haven't looked back, well sometimes, but I always choose stock android

Are we looking at different videos? L doesn't look or work anything like Windows Phone! The only thing even remotely similar is some of the flat colors. Otherwise Windows Phone is much darker and the interface behaves completely differently. Maybe you have specific examples of the similarities?!

Any word if the nexus 4 will be getting this? Should, its two years are up in November and its rocking the same chip as the nexus 7 2013 Wondering weather to get the nexus 5 or wait for 6/Silver
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It is actually a different chip than the Nexus 7. It was reported that the leaks from a couple days ago had a screen resolution of 1280x768. That is a good sign they were from a Nexus 4. I would be surprised if Google doesn't update it. It is more than capable of handling it and Qualcomm is supporting the SOC for sure.

I like the new buttons maybe I'll get used to them I miss the old one's, I'm going to get a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 (Because I love them and there features, and also they're my Tablet manufacturer!!) and The new Moto G or some Android Powered phone (Because their my Phone manufacturer)!! Because I LOVE STOCK VANILLA ANDROID!!!

Surprisingly, I'm excited for the notifications and Android apps that will be able to run on the Chromebook. I think this will help sell more Chromebooks. If you can run a lot of Android apps on it and get the new notifications and some features of Android version L on it, it makes a strong case for getting a Chromebook instead of a Tablet. In fact, once we get a full look and more info on how L integrates into Chrome OS, I may just pick one up, instead of getting a new tablet. Color me intrigued. Good on ya, Google.

I think android L is the exact overhaul that the OS needed. Smooth and crisp animations, beautiful and modern design are the things what I really had been craving for. The only disappointment is the group of onscreen buttons.

#1 question that most car buyer ask themselves... "will this car help get me laid more often?"

#1 question that should be on any Android device buyer's mind is: "will this Android phone(or tablet) run as smooth as iPhones or ipads?"

I am an Android fanboy and I hate Apple. Sadly, I still have not seen an Android device that runs as smoothly as iPhones/iPads. :( Android OS still feels like a work-in-progress. Having said that, I'm picking up my new Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 SuperAMOLED tablet tomorrow! When I played with it at the Best Buy store, it clearly was still not as smooth as the iPad. Same thing with my other tablet, the Nexus 7.

"Project Volta" sounds and are maybe good thing, but still all apps, what Google have done use WHITE BACKGROUND and there are no theme for dark or black. We know that the display is the most energy juicer and we, who use AM OLED display are not happy with this Google line. I and many many users have tryed to write feedback for years about this to Google, but now answer, no help, nothing. Still white everywhere..

You'd be bold to tell me that the notifications on the lock screen aren't ugly. It seems to not flow with the rest of the UI. They look out of place, and is the only place the design team seemed to phone it in.

"Android design boss Matias Duarte says Google took inspiration from paper and ink in its new design language."
Careful, that's gonna come back and bite you in the butt. Everyone knows, Apple invented paper and ink.

The main thing I want to know about the Android Lik-A-Stix[1] update is more prosaic than what's been discussed so far: I want to know if they'll finally have native .opus support. (Being "Mandatory to Implement" for WebRTC, and being the audio codec paired with Google's vp9 for their update to the .webm video format, I would have expected it by now).

What I want to see is Bluetooth with an always on Keyboard or at least a widget that will allow you to switch it off and on at your discretion rather than Google's. Right now, I have the problem of Android turning my keyboard bluetooth off and on like a yo-yo. I want it to be on when I am going to start to type as an input, but it can be a real nightmare trying to wake Android up in the Device when I actually want to type on an external device rather than the on screen keyboard. The have BT 4.0 in Android 4.4.4 which I have installed on my Nexus 10. It is still hesitant to accept external input. I have a workaround, but Google can't seriously claim that the Android is a replacement for Windows without a reliable external keyboard input. My Bluetooth keyboard keyboard works flawlessly on my Windows computer, but with my Android Tablet it is a Cacophony. It has never worked correctly, but somehow Google has never gotten around to fixing it. If I wake the Tablet up by pressing the little Blue FN key at the bottom of the keyboard. Then I can start typing and text will be entered. What I am amazed about is why they have not fixed this problem.

I find most of these comments hilarious.
The VAST majority that are against the new function icons aren't against their design, but are ACTUALLY against CHANGE in general (as if anything new is to be feared and hated).

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